Waiting Too Long

I was going to write about something else this morning, but a friend's Facebook post led me in a different direction.  She asked for prayer for the family of a friend who just passed away following a massive heart attack.  What makes his death especially sad was that it might have been prevented.

This friend was quite overweight and about a year ago my friend gave him some information about Take Shape for Life/Medifast.  She and her husband have both a lot of weight on this program and several of her friends and family members have also been very successful.  Because she cared about her friend, she gently approached him with information that she knew could make a difference in his life and his health.  He took the information and looked it over, then returned it the next day and told her that he wasn't interested.  That was a year ago, a year that could have ended up saving his life.  He was the sole caregiver for some medically-fragile relatives.

This is at least the third story I've heard of someone who was given information about Take Shape for Life/Medifast but decided, for whatever reason, that they weren't ready to lose weight and get healthy (and didn't choose another program, either), then died suddenly of heart attack or a diabetic coma.  While I can't say for certain that this wouldn't have happened anyway, I can't help but wonder if different choices made even a few months earlier would have resulted in a different outcome.

One of my friends lost a friend of hers just about a year ago when he lapsed into a diabetic coma.  He had a full order of Medifast products in one of his cabinets - it had been there for months - and he kept telling her that he knew he needed to get started.  In one of his last conversations with her, he told her that he was thinking about it, but he never moved beyond thinking about it to actually doing it and it cost him his life.

It's so easy to put things off, especially things that will require change.  Even when we know that we SHOULD do something different, making the fundamental choice to move in a new direction is difficult.  It's easy to think that we'll wait until tomorrow, or until things slow down, or . . .

Maybe you don't have any health concerns right now and just want to lose some weight so you'll look good in shorts and a swimsuit this summer, so it's easy to shrug off these stories right now.  Health issues are not one of your concerns right now.  What about tomorrow?

Others of you already have health concerns and these concerns motivated you to get started on this program.  Is getting healthy keeping you focused to stay on plan?  Is your desire to get to a healthy weight - and get healthy - compelling enough to make the choices needed to reach your goal?

I didn't write today's blog as a scare tactic because negative motivation isn't sustainable over time.  My purpose in sharing today is to encourage you to focus on a long-term goal of getting and staying healthy and not put it off until tomorrow or next week or next month.  You have the tools you need to change your life - all that's needed is to make the choices to actually do it.  Choose wisely :-)